Blogs are opinion pieces and reflect their author’s views
The federal government gives up about $30 billion in revenue through tax-based spending programs. This cost is split approximately one-third for measures promoting economic development and two-thirds for measures with a social objective. A tough but fair review of these measures could easily come up with about $6 billion in savings. As discussed in last […]
Written by: John Lester
The federal government is in the midst of reviewing tax expenditures, assessing them against their fairness, efficiency and cost. It is a daunting task: The federal government identifies about 250 measures as tax expenditures, expected to cost about $140 billion in 2017. The task can be greatly simplified, however, by putting tax expenditures into three […]
Written by: John Lester
The executive order by President Trump to pull the U.S out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) marks the beginning of higher prices for dairy products in Canada. Canadian negotiators spent more than seven years and millions of dollars to be part of the agreement. TPP presented a glimmer of hope for reforming the Canadian dairy […]
Written by: Ven Venkatachalam
Since the end of the oil boom in mid-2014, Alberta has shed 113,000 payroll jobs <sup>1</sup>. However, this conjures up an image that job losses were concentrated in searching for and extracting oil outside of urban areas. In fact, only one-third of the losses occurred in oil and gas mining. It will surprise many that […]
Written by: Philip Cross
There is no doubt that free trade policies, and their accompanying open border principles, have taken a political beating in 2015. The vote in the United Kingdom to exit the European Union (Brexit) along with the protectionist and isolationist tone of the U.S. Presidential debate (on both sides) reflect a shift in public support for […]
Written by: Eugene Beaulieu and Kelly O’Neill